INTRODUCTION:

Skardu is a city in Gilgit-Baltistan region of Pakistan, and serves as the capital of Skardu District.
Skardu is located in the 10 kilometers (6 miles) wide by 40 kilometers (25 miles) long Skardu Valley,
at the confluence of the Indus and Shigar Rivers at an elevation of nearly 2,500 meters (8,202 feet).
The city is an important gateway to the eight-thousands of the nearby Karakoram Mountain range.
The town is located on the Indus river, which separates the Karakoram Range from the Himalayas.

SOILCONDITION:
 Rock desert area.
 Good bearing capacity of soil.
 Sometimes they just polished the stones as flooring on mountains.

CLIMATE:
Skardu features a cold semi-arid climate. The climate of Skardu during the summer is moderated by
its mountain setting; the intense heat of lowland Pakistan does not reach it. The mountains block out
the summer monsoon, and summer rainfall is thus quite low. However, these mountains result in very
severe winter weather. During the April-to-October tourist season, temperatures vary between a
maximum of 27 °C (81 °F) and a minimum (in October) 8 °C (46 °F).
Temperatures can drop to below −10 °C (14 °F) in the December-to-January midwinter period. The
lowest recorded temperature was −24.1 °C (−11 °F) on 7 January 1995.
SKARDU WEATHER BY MONTH //WEATHER AVERAGES:

January February March April May June July August September October November December

Avg. -4.7 -2.7 4.2 10.7 15.6 20 23.4 23.2 18.4 11.5 4.6 -1.1
Temperature
(°C)

Min. -9.3 -7.8 -0.7 5.2 9.3 13.1 16.5 16.3 11.6 4.6 -2 -6.1
Temperature
(°C)

Max. 0 2.4 9.1 16.3 22 26.9 30.3 30.1 25.2 18.5 11.3 4
Temperature
(°C)

Avg. 23.5 27.1 39.6 51.3 60.1 68.0 74.1 73.8 65.1 52.7 40.3 30.0
Temperature
(°F)

Min. 15.3 18.0 30.7 41.4 48.7 55.6 61.7 61.3 52.9 40.3 28.4 21.0
Temperature
(°F)

Max. 32.0 36.3 48.4 61.3 71.6 80.4 86.5 86.2 77.4 65.3 52.3 39.2
Temperature
(°F)

Precipitation / 23 22 35 29 28 8 9 10 12 7 4 15
Rainfall (mm)

The variation in the precipitation between the driest and wettest months is 31 mm. The variation in
temperatures throughout the year is 28.1 °C.
TRANSPORT:
Road
The normal road route into Skardu is via the Karakorum Highway and a Skardu Road into the Skardu
Valley from it. Roads once linked Skardu to Srinagar and Leh, though none are open for cross-
LoC travel.
Skardu's weather can have adverse effects on transport in and out of the region, as Skardu is often
snowbound during the winter months. Roads in and out of Skardu can be blocked for extended
periods of time, sometimes leaving air travel as the only feasible alternative.
Air
Skardu Airport is served by a daily direct flight from Islamabad. Air travel in winter is subject to
disruption due to the unpredictable winter weather.

MATERIALS OF CONSTRUCTION:
Stone:
Availability and Collection:
Stone is the natural building material for the NA. At all the villages visited by us it is available in
boulder, rubble or slate form at not more than a kilometre distance. Originally, it was carried by the
people on their backs to the site of construction. Now, however, it is more economical to hire a tractor
than employ paid labour. A tractor in one trip carries about 65 cubic feet of stone. In an eight hour
period it can make about six trips if the source is at a distance of one kilometre and seven persons are
employed in loading and unloading it. The cost of acquiring stone then works out to:
Cost of hiring tractor (depending on the location) : Rs 200 – 250
- Cost of employing seven labourers for loading and unloading stone: 7 x Rs 20 : Rs 140 ---------
Average : Rs 365 - Quantity of stone acquired 65 x 6 : 400 cubic feet - Cost of acquiring one cubic
foot of stone : Rs 0.92.

STONE MASONARY
Working:
Stone is either broken at source or at the site into smaller manageable sizes. This breaking is done by
a “mator” or hammer. The person who does it is known as a “matori”. He can break upto 120 cubic
feet of stone per day. His wages vary from Rs 70 per day in Gilgit to about Rs 30 at Jandrote. In case
of rural houses the people carry out this operation themselves. The broken stone is then used as
random or coarse rubble masonry. For better quality work it is hammer dressed to proper sizes and
laid in regular courses. The figures given by masons for the amount of stone they can prepare and lay
in a day vary considerably. However, figures given by Ustad Yakook Khan, the master mason of the
Nazimabad School, and those given by Captain Sana Khan who has built a house in Gilgit, tally.
According to them, two masons working together can put up about 100 square feet of rubble or
dressed stone masonry in a day. The masonry thickness would be about 1’-6”. Sometimes 10” to 12”
thick masonry is used, in which case a large square footage of wall can be erected in a day. In
addition, one mason can prepare 30 to 40 pieces of hammer dressed stones of about 1’-6”x9”x6” in
one day. The wages of a mason vary from Rs 70 to Rs 30 per day, depending on the quality of the
mason and the location of the place where work is being carried out. Skills for breaking, making and
laying of stone are easily available in every settlement, where amateur masons may work for as little
as Rs 20 per day. All masons interviewed said that they would prefer to work for considerably less
wages in their own village rather than in Gilgit, Chilas or Skardu for a higher wage.

TIMBER: Availability and Collection: Timber is acquired by the people either by cutting their own
“Sufaida” or Poplar trees, or by purchasing it from the nearest available source, sometimes even in
the form of trees from the Forest Department. In the former case, they normally do not plant new
trees thus creating deforestation. In the latter case, problems of sawing, transportation from the forest
to the road, and from the road to the site arise. The transportation and sawing costs end up by being
almost 200 to 300 % higher than the actual cost of timber. All people at the sites visited by us
complained about deforestation, excessive transport costs of timber, and about its comparative non-
availability. However, timber remains the most important building material. A more viable alternative
for roofing has not yet been discovered. Most people building their homes cannot afford Kael wood
whose cost varies from Rs 40 to Rs 75 per cubic foot in sleeper form, depending on the location
where purchase is made. A system of permits for acquiring timber, of misappropriating timber by
striking deals with government officials, and of stealing it from forest reserves does exist, and is used.
This reduces the timber cost to half of its market value. “Sufaida” trees planted by the people in their
farms are still the most common source of timber for domestic houses and for community made
community use buildings. Unseasoned Sufaida is a supple timber and likely to bend in stress.

Reasons for Non-use of Lime:

Lime is now seldom used in the architecture of the NA. At all the sites visited by us its only recent
use was noticed at the Bubar and Khyber School buildings. One of the reasons for this is that with the
establishment of the new communication network, cement is readily available though twice the price
of lime. However, the real reason is that the extraction of lime is a complex affair. The manner in
which it is done at present is labour intensive and consumes too large a quantity of fuel for the
amount that is extracted. The kiln used is archaic and inefficient, and people cannot properly identify
better quality lime stone. If a more scientific and easy to construct kiln could be designed,
maximising the use of heat generated, then people would adopt it in a big way. If it could be powered
by solar energy, firing costs could be reduced to nil.

MUD: Quality: The quality of mud varies considerably from place to place. In most cases, it has a
fairly large silica content, making it unsuitable as a building material.
OTHER MATERIALS:
 Mud bricks
 Cement blocks

Earthquake Considerations:
On investigation it was discovered that buildings which had collapsed or had been seriously damaged
had one or more of the following characteristics in common:
• The load bearing walls had a vertical clay filling between 2 stone skins. This is known as a “dhori
diwar” .
• The rubble did not have transversal stones of wall thickness at regular intervals.
• The roof joists were not interconnected by timber members.
• The walls gave way at the junctions.
• The wall thickness was of less than 10”.
EARTHQUAKES IN SKARDU:
Skardu has had:

 0 earthquakes in the past 24 hours

 0 earthquakes in the past 7 days
 0 earthquakes in the past 30 days
 5 earthquakes in the past 365 days

The largest earthquake in Skardu:

 this year: 5.3 in Kashmir

Vernacular architecture of skardu:

The architecture of any region reflects the attitude of its people towards their living style, which furth
er defined by the existing realities of that region.GilgitBaltistan being isolated in mountain and predo
minated by extreme climatic conditions, has developed a unique culture of its own. That unique cultu
re and its tangible outcome in the form of architecture represent the indigenous wisdom of dwellers
of that region. The artistic fusion and local knowledge of materiality with the region’s unique cultura
l norms and valves has given birth to the historic icons like Baltit fort, Altit fort, Shigar fort Khaplu f
ort and historic Mosques. The abundant use of communal spaces such as ‘Jataq’ (gathering space for
religious and cultural activities), Shabaran and baldi in local architecture are the examples of this fus
ion. In the Baltit fort we can see the amalgamation of different architectural elements, but the essence
of local architecture has been kept through the use of local materials, architectural elements such as r
otated square sky light, in local language termed as Sagham while Cribbage (cator) is a technique us
e to make building earth quake resistant, is mainly used in this region.